


your best friend (always sticking up for you)

by tambuli



Series: by what right (does the dragon judge the griffon) [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Character Death, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, i mean look at varric tethras fam, rogues are the best friends you'll ever have true story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 17:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11317911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tambuli/pseuds/tambuli
Summary: Zevran and Leliana look at each other.“What would you do,” Zevran says lowly, “to ensure her happiness?”Leliana meets his gaze squarely.There is nothing more that needs to be said.//As if Zevran and Leliana would ever let Kallian Tabris break her heart.





	your best friend (always sticking up for you)

Tabris comes into his room, her eyes heavy with unshed tears, and Zevran knows immediately the cause of her sorrow.

“So it is decided then? Alistair will marry the queen?”

Tabris nods. After a beat, the elven assassin steps forward, and enfolds her in his arms.

“Sorella,” he whispers, “sorella.”

“It is for the better,” she says, and her voice doesn’t shake even as tears course their way down her cheeks. “He will be a good king. He will be kind to the people. He will be kind to the elves—”

“Especially the elves,” Zevran inserts slyly, hoping to make her smile. But the girl in his arms is still as stone, and she does not lift her arms to embrace Zevran back, even though she was the one who taught him to hug in the first place.

“There is time still, sorella,” he says, smoothing away the red hair stuck to her wet cheeks. “I am sure Arl Eamon could spin a way for him not to marry Anora. Perhaps her barrenness? What use is it for a king to marry his brother’s widow if the line will end in the next generation anyway?”

“But Anora is needed,” Tabris says. “Without Anora we could not hope to win the Landsmeet. The kingdom is already whispering. The Wardens, led by an elf? It is bad enough that King Maric’s son defers to an elf, but to have an elven queen—”

“Come, sorella, hug me back,” Zevran says, and tugs at her arms. “You taught me this, yes? The arms go so, and the face in the shoulder, like so—”

Tabris breathes out a shaky laugh, and embraces the other elf properly, burying her face into his leathers.

“There we go. The student has surpassed the master.”

Zevran feels Tabris smile against him, but even without seeing it he knows it is a wan, sad thing.

“He has to take the throne, Zev,” she says, muffled. “For the good of Ferelden. For the good of us all.”

“At the cost of your heart, sorella?”

She straightens up.

“We are Grey Wardens,” she said. “Wynne warned me. We serve all, never ourselves.”

Zevran uses his thumb to wipe the tears from beneath her eyelids.

“Ah, Kallian,” he sighs, using her very rarely uttered first name. “Come, you need a distraction. I have heard this Eamon stocks Antivan spices in his kitchen. I will teach you the art of Antivan cooking, and when you come to visit the city with me, you will know then what you prefer, yes?”

Tabris nods, attempting a smile, but in Zevran’s mind there is already a plan brewing.

==

Here is the thing: Zevran had fully expected to be killed by the Grey Wardens.

He had looked up at the redheaded elven Warden, with a build just like his, ears just like his, and thought to himself, _I wished to die, and how kind of the Maker, for my killer to be an elf. It feels right._

But the Maker had surprised him with an extended hand and warm brown eyes, and Zevran knew he would be perfectly happy serving this woman to the end of his days.

Which would not be many, given the Blight they were supposed to be facing.

 He could have left at any point—Tabris had said from the beginning that should he want to leave, he was free to go. “I am not a _shem_ ,” she spat, “to cage someone against their will.”

But Zevran had his honor, yes? He vowed to serve, and so he would, despite the dirty looks sent at him and the conspicuous checking of food whenever they made camp.

And later, it was not honor that bade him stay, but his heart.

Oh, nothing as sordid as romance! It is only that Zevran is self-aware. The kindness shown to him by Tabris, and later by the whole company—that, he has latched on to. There is laughter around the campfire, and music; Leliana sings and strums her lute, Tabris teaches them the alienage dances, and Oghren howls out the bawdiest tavern songs he knows. He has never had such uncomplicated companionship before.

Even Rinna and Taliesen had never made him feel this way, for there is no backstabbing here, no veiled cruelties. There is only blankly staring at Shale and Sten, throwing sticks for Rabbit, teasing Wynne, Alistair, and Morrigan.

Dare he call it—family?

And at the heart of it all, a redheaded elf. Kallian Tabris, tiny and lightfooted, drawing her greatsword and slashing at enemies; Kallian Tabris, who berserks not with rage but with utter serenity as she destroys swathes of darkspawn to keep them safe.

Tabris, bright-eyed and swift of smile, holding them all together.

It was more than he had ever had. It was more than he had ever dreamed of, as a child in Antiva, so he guards her flank and stabs her enemies, and when they clean up the corpses he looks at her and thinks, _sorella. Sister, sister._

_What I would do, to keep her safe._

He did much. He would do more, always and again.

==

They run into Leliana on their way to the kitchens, and she is absolutely delighted at their idea. “Antivan cooking! How wonderful! I will come along and teach you Orlesian delicacies. What is this about traveling? You will go to Antiva after all of this is over? Then you must come to Orlais. Oh, Tabris, the _shoes_ I could put you in! You will be the loveliest lady in all of Orlais!

“Zevran, you will come too, yes? We will go on a tour of Thedas! Do you think softie will show us around Par Vollen? Isn’t it strange how most Qunari have horns and yet our Sten does not?”

And if, in all that chatter, Leliana manages to look both soft and steel-eyed—

And if, in all that chatter, Zevran watches her note the tear tracks on Tabris’ cheeks, the slow sad movements of the swift-moving elven Warden—

(she nicks herself on a knife, and both rogues look at each other with hardened eyes)

—then that only reassures Zevran that what he is planning is the right thing.

They have a hysterical afternoon, almost frantic in their laughter. Leliana does her level best to stuff Tabris with Orlesian food; Zevran plays the seducer, holding out food for Tabris to lick off his fingers. Their beloved elven Warden laughs, but both rogues see that it is a temporary thing, that as soon as they stop distracting her she will fall back into calm despair.

So they do not stop distracting her, until she is so weary she falls asleep.

Then Zevran and Leliana look at each other.

“What would you do,” Zevran says lowly, “to ensure her happiness?”

Leliana meets his gaze squarely.

There is nothing more that needs to be said.

==

In the end it is—

very simple.

He is a Crow, yes? Not the best one, truly, but one still, and an average Crow is a better killer than regular people would ever meet in their lives. He is an assassin. He specializes in deaths that lead to political intrigue.

His masters may have issued the kill orders, but that did not mean he did not understand the reasons behind them.

Nor how those deaths would rock the boat.

(Zev never claimed to be a good person. Only a fiercely protective one.)

It is the simplest thing.

The morning of the Landsmeet, Queen Anora takes more care with her appearance than usual. Coils her hair immaculately, paints her face with just the right amount of makeup to make her look both innocent and powerful—a grieving widow and a strong queen. A woman who steered the country for five years, who wants the best for Ferelden so badly she is willing to marry her husband’s brother.

Tragic and beautiful.

She reaches for the pot of lip color, and paints her lips the perfect shade of pink.

Then she gets up and walks to the hall.

“I am perfectly capable of speaking for myself,” she says, and the whole hall stills. She licks her lips, because even though she wants to be queen it is still difficult to betray the only family she has. “Father is no longer the hero he used to be—he is mad—he had me—had me—locked up—”

Her fall is graceful; a marionette whose strings were cut in the most regal way.

==

Accusations are hurled left and right—she was staying in your estate, Eamon, you _murderer_ , you _usurper_ , you killed my _daughter—_ I would never wish the queen harm, I had her rescued from her imprisonment, which was, I will remind you, _your_ idea—you wanted your brother’s widow gone so you could rule by yourself—why would I want that, having her dead just means there would be no one to succeed the throne should I die in the Blight—

An investigation. The pot, found. The makeup, examined.

“Adder’s Kiss,” the royal poisoners and herbalists concur.

A _Tevinter_ special.

And who was it, again, who was trading in slaves to send to Tevinter?

After that, the rumors took on a life of their own.

(Did they? Did they really?)

Whispers, rumors. Rendon Howe had one daughter and two sons. Long ago, he had sought to wed his sons to Anora Mac Tir and Elissa Cousland; his daughter, to Cailan Theirin.

Anora Mac Tir married Cailan Theirin, and Elissa Cousland, wild child that she was, declared she would never marry unless it was for love.

Later: Highever sacked. Later: every single Cousland murdered, with the daughter curled around her parents, in a failed attempt to protect them from what had come.

Later: Rendon Howe, declared teyrn of Highever.

What would he do, for power?

He had murdered. He had enslaved. He had tortured. He had consorted with blood mages.

Was it hard to believe that he would poison? Was it hard to believe that he would want Anora out of the way, so Delilah Howe could sweep into her place?

What an injustice, that he had died before they could discover his crime. That the poison he had planted in Anora’s dresser during her captivity had made its way to her freedom. What a tragedy that, in a time that she should have been _safe_ from his machinations, she had instead fallen in a too-late-sprung trap.

The golden king and the golden queen, dead before their time.

 _The Golden Warden is the only one left,_ Ferelden whispers. _Maker preserve us. Maker preserve him._

_No, that’s not true. There is another. There is the Warden-elf._

_An **elf**? Why should we care about a knife-ear?_

_Andraste wanted to free the slaves. Who are we to be prejudiced against those loved by the Bride of the Maker?_

And at the end of it all:

Golden Warden King Alistair, kneeling as the Grand Cleric crowned him—

—Ferelden humming below their breaths a song composed by a mysterious bard:

_Wouldn’t it be romantic if the last two Grey Wardens fell in love?_

—and Kallian Tabris, running into the arms of Zevran and Leliana.

“Thank you, thank you,” she whispers. “I don’t know what I would have done, that night before the Landsmeet, if you hadn’t been there, I owe you such a debt—”

“Sorella,” Zevran begins, at the same time that Leliana says, “Mon amie—”

“There is nothing I would not do for you,” Zevran says.

“I would say the same, mon amie, but I cannot promise that I will buy you ugly shoes! My dear! Now we can finally go to Orlais! Oh, how lovely you will look, on the streets of Val Royeaux!”

Tabris throws her head back and laughs and laughs and laughs—

Zevran and Leliana look at each other.

_What would you do for her happiness?_

_This, and much, much more._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm p sure i butchered leliana but i just cannot get her voice right  
> also i do this thing where i write and then post, no editing at all  
> it's awful and my creative writing professors would disown me but you know, sometimes fics just Happen to you
> 
> also: this was supposed to be zevran-centric only but leliana stealthed in and demanded to help. i'll write something leliana-centric someday soon i swear
> 
> title from drops of jupiter
> 
> alternate name for this collection: the many deaths of anora mac tir


End file.
